Businessman Eugene Lang really started something when he promised
to pay for the education of any students from his old school in East
Harlem who reached university. Twenty-two years later, his vision
has benefited 13,500 children from low-income families throughout
the United States. It is an inspiring tale and one that should not
escape the attention of corporate New Zealand now that software
developer Scott Gilmour has introduced the concept here. For East
Harlem, read Mt Roskill and, more specifically, the 36 pupils in the
Year 4 class at Wesley Primary School, an almost entirely immigrant
group of 8 and 9-year-olds from Tonga, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Fiji
and Ethiopia. They are being offered guidance, encouragement and the
help of a full-time co-ordinator while at school - and the ultimate
carrot of Mr Gilmour's trust paying for four years of tertiary
study.
There will be those who claim that charity has stumbled into a
domain that is properly the preserve of the state, that the
Government should maintain the ideal that every child has a fair
chance of making a good life for him or herself. But if the
perceived birthright remains, the reality is different. Children
from decile one schools, which have pupils with the lowest
socio-economic rating, are far less likely to go to university than
students from well-to-do areas. Indeed, University of Auckland
research into the educational attainment of third formers has shown
that some decile one high schools in Auckland could not boast even
one bursary success. In decile 10 schools, those at the wealthy end
of the scale, almost 80 per cent of third formers went on to gain a
bursary.
There are about 120 decile one primary schools around the
country; by far the majority of the one in five students who leave
secondary school without a formal qualification pass through them -
and into low-paying jobs. Education correlates strongly with
economic success in adulthood, so the failure to attain a
qualification is, first, a major obstacle to individual success and
fulfilment. More worryingly from the community viewpoint, it creates
the potential for problems that filter down from generation to
generation.
Education offers the opportunity to break that cycle - and in the
process create a well-qualified workforce. Yet there has been little
success in reducing the number of children who leave school without
a formal qualification. The potential of these youngsters remains
untapped. The reasons may be many - scanty Government funding,
poor-quality teaching, or a bureaucratic unwillingness to support
innovation or concepts outside mainstream thinking.
That is why Mr Gilmour's sponsoring of the first "I Have a Dream"
project outside the US is such a breath of fresh air. There will be
no shortfall in resourcing; the trust fund is, in fact, probably
overendowed because American education costs have been used as a
guide. And there is an emphasis on quality teaching, notably through
the auspices of after-school classes, field trips and holiday
programmes - paid for by sponsors.
Additionally, Mr Gilmour has been astute in selecting Mt Roskill
senior constable Nick Tuitasi and Wesley deputy principal Vasa
Auva'a-Key as trustees of the charity. Mr Tuitasi won a Queen's
Service Medal in 1998 for reducing juvenile crime in Mt Roskill. A
key plank of his approach was always to get errant children back to
school.
At the time of the award, Mr Tuitasi said that police knew that
"10 per cent of the people commit 90 per cent of the crime. If you
can get through to those people, you are in a position to change
society for years to come". Mr Gilmour's initiative offers an
outstanding opportunity to "get through" to a small group of
children from low-income homes at an early age - and in a way that
offers them a strong chance of forging a successful life. It will
benefit not just the children individually, but society as a whole.
Others in the business community should follow his lead.
